Sketch of Fortress on Hill n.d.

Richard Wilson made this sketch of a fortress on a hill sometime in the 18th century. Its precise date and location are unknown. We can, however, say something about the conditions that enabled its production. Wilson was a landscape painter, one of a generation for whom Italy was a necessary pilgrimage. His networks of patronage were built through institutions like the Society of Dilettanti, a gentlemen’s club that sponsored expeditions to classical lands. The purpose was partly antiquarian, to document ancient ruins. But it was also about defining British identity in relation to the rest of Europe. Italy was both a source of civilization and a place of indolence and decline. The picturesque style Wilson helped to pioneer offered a way of seeing that reconciled these contradictions. Sketches like these provided source material for the idealised landscapes he would later produce for wealthy landowners, who saw themselves as modern-day Roman emperors. The social life of art, as revealed through careful research, shapes its meanings.